IoT-based healthcare system for real-time maternal stress monitoring

There is a major concern about pregnancy-associated stress and anxiety, which are key risk factors for various pregnancy complications involving the health of mother and fetus [13, 14, 24, 32]. Maternal adaptations to decrease the stress level are important to enable a successful pregnancy although various maternal difficulties and environmental stressors can disrupt these adaptations. Several studies have tackled this subject, managing stress level during pregnancy with different medications and techniques [12, 22]. However, to support the conventional clinical methods, a personalized and automated healthcare system is highly required, providing stress monitoring for not only in-hospital environment but also everyday settings. Fortunately, recent advancements in Internet of Things (IoT) technologies have enabled the deployment of remote health monitoring systems in real-time applications, of which patient's health-associated parameters are continuously collected and analyzed to deliver health services.